


god, you're weird

by youatemytailor



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Gen, because this is my niche honestly, jessica and matt become dumpster friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 19:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11857707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youatemytailor/pseuds/youatemytailor
Summary: The dumpster smells like shit. Seems fitting, Jessica thinks. She probably belongs here. She can feel her broken camera digging into her hip. And something else, actually.Devil horns? What the fuck?“Uh, buddy," she says carefully, "I don’t think this dumpster is big enough for the both of us.”“I was here first,” the devil says, into a face full of garbage.





	god, you're weird

**Author's Note:**

> I love these dorks. I've had this written for a while -- almost as soon as Jessica Jones aired, but I never published it because it seemed unfinished. Now that these idiots have finally met, I can finally indulge.

It’s been a shitty, shitty night.

The mental checklist goes as follows: already hungover, already pissed as shit, as usual. Cue a half-assed attempt to do her actual job to keep her mind off of Luke storming off, cue getting spotted by the angry cheating husband she was supposed to be surveilling, cue getting her camera smashed to pieces (courtesy of said husband), cue a really boring fist fight with a misogynistic moron who calls her a bunch of names and acts like he can throw a punch, cue getting hit by a fucking car while saving the cheating asshole from getting run over, and finally, cherry on top, cue being bone-tired and literally crawling into a dumpster to resist the urge to kill the aforementioned fucking asshole piece of shit human being.

Having superpowers should probably be more glamorous, but hey. She has banana peel in her hair. So that’s something.

The dumpster smells like shit. Seems fitting, Jessica thinks. She probably belongs here. She can feel her broken camera digging into her hip. And something else, actually.

Devil horns? What the fuck?

“Uh, buddy," she says carefully, "I don’t think this dumpster is big enough for the both of us.”

“I was here first,” the devil says, into a face full of garbage.

"Nuh-uh."

The devil groans and rolls over. The half of his face that’s visible is covered in blood, his lip split clean down the middle and a ugly purple bruise forming at the corner of his jaw. She’d almost feel bad for the guy if he didn’t look so fucking ridiculous in that get-up.

“You don’t look so hot, Satan,” she says.

The edge of the guy’s mouth quirks up. “You're one to talk. You fall into a distillery?”

Jessica snorts. “It’s my natural musk.”

He laughs, and it sounds like it hurts him. Maneuvering around in the trash isn’t an easy task, but he manages to sit up, somehow. The full-view of the costume is even more ridiculous, but it seems legit. Well made. Hand-made. Kevlar, maybe. Shit. Not just some random dude playing hero, then. The real Daredevil? Or whatever the fuck they call him in the papers? Took Fisk down a couple weeks back, if she remembers correctly. She was too busy dealing with Killgrave to be of any help. There's never going to be a shortage of fat mobsters, so a crazy dude with mind-control powers is always going to take precedence, as far as she's concerned.

Anyway, whoever this guy is, he’s breathing very hard. In need of medical care kind of hard. Jessica sighs. She’d like an hour off, once in a while. Can't even sit in a fucking dumpster in peace.

“Look," she says, and Satan leans towards her to listen. "You need help getting to the hospital or something? I wasn’t kidding. You really look like shit. Trick or treaters do a number on you?”

“I’ll be fine," he sighs. Then he frowns. “It's not Halloween.”

“Says the guy hanging out in the trash dressed like the devil.”

“I’m not –“ he starts, sounding exasperated, but hisses instead and grabs at his side. “I don’t need help.”

Oh, great. He’s that sort. Pissy and full of pride. Why can't shit just be easy for once?

"Yeah. That's convincing."

He doesn't reply, doesn't take the bait, just stares straight ahead. Clearly she going to have to try for a bit more empathy. God, it’s hard to talk to people.

“Seriously, whatever you did tonight, it’s not worth you kicking it in a dumpster surrounded by month old Chinese food. Think about how your obituary would read.”

“I’m fine," he repeats firmly. "Besides, you’re the one with the broken rib here.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your rib,” he tips his chin towards her. “It’s broken, clean down the middle.” He pauses, head tilting a bit further, like he’s concentrating. Makes him look kind of like a confused dog. “Also your collarbone too, I think,” he adds, his face visibly relaxing, shock coming through just a little. “You can’t feel any of that?”

Now that he mentions it, her left side does sting a bit. It’s hard to tell when whiskey’s involved.

“What," she says, not really expecting an honest answer, "You got x-ray eyes or something?”

He laughs again, and it turns into a wheeze. “Or something. And yours? Super-strength? Resistance to pain? Was it you that stopped that car a block down? That's impressive.”

For fuck’s sake. She’s fallen into a support group dumpster for wannabe Avengers. She didn't sign up for this team bonding shit.

“Gee, thanks. Super-hearing? That your thing?”

He shrugs. Tries not to show it but that hurts him, too. Fuck, he’s in bad shape.

“I thought Satan was supposed to be more talkative. Might wanna re-think the suit.”

He tries to sigh, but coughs up a shitload of blood instead. He drags the back of his hand against his mouth, wipes it on his leg, red on red.

“Nice," she says, "You seem real healthy.”

She can’t see the guy’s eyes, but by the set of his jaw she’s pretty sure he’s glaring. People do that a lot around her. At this point, it just slides right off.

“Look,” he says, a tad testily, “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

“Hey, you don’t own this dumpster, guy.”

“Like I said, I was here first.”

“Like I said, I don’t give a shit. I like it here. I think I’ll move in.”

He gives a huffy sort of scoff through gritted teeth. “You’re extremely annoying,” he points out.

“I know, thanks.”

There’s a beat of silence. Jessica kind of wants to fuck off home. Desperately, actually. She really could use a shower and about twenty hours of sleep but he's made it a thing, now, all bleeding and snarky and shit, and so now she can't leave. God damn it.

Four separate sirens blow past them in two minutes. The guy flinches at every single one. Super-hearing, definitely. _Must suck_ , is as far as she can think on the issue because his breathing is turning into literal fucking wheezing and she really doesn’t want another death on her conscience, so. Time to bring out the big guns. Small guns. Guns of healing. Whatever.

"Alright," she says, and shifts a little in the dumpster to sit up on her knees. "As long as we’re sitting here being all vague, I know someone. She’ll help you. No hospitals, no questions.”

After all this time doing shit for people, Jessica knows never to expect a thank you, but he suddenly goes rigid. Which is not the regular reaction at all. Fuck, is he having a seizure? “Are you having a fucking seizure? Because I'm really not in the mood to--”

“What’s her name?”

“What?”

“Your nurse, what’s her name?”

Jessica feels her blood run cold. "I never said she was a nurse.”

Satan's still staring at her when the ice in her veins drops into her stomach. That distant, detached feeling she was sure she'd never feel again comes back, full force, threatening to make her hands shake. She curls them into fists. The feeling passes between one breath and the next and suddenly she's furious instead. In her extensive experience getting shit out of people, the direct approach has always proven to be the best approach so she grabs him by the lapel, and Satan doesn't put up much of a fight, except grunt in what sounds like shock.

“Explain," she snaps, shoving him against the edge of the dumpster. "Now. And if you start with some mind-reader crap, fair warning, I will punch you in the face. I know you’re half dead but it’ll hurt, trust me.”

His stubbled jaw tenses, and he deliberates for a very long second. It must eventually dawn on him there's no way out without coming clean, so he digs his hand into his pocket to fish out a burner phone. Jessica doesn't release him.  

"Hey, let me just--" he wraps a hand around hers, and gets enough wiggle room to breathe. "I'll explain, okay?"

He waves the phone in her face like a white flag until she catches sight of his reddening skin around her hands and lets go. He makes a show of not gasping for air when she does and coughs into his fist instead. "You're really strong," he says, rubbing at his neck with one hand and flipping his phone open with the other.

"Yeah," she grunts, "Don't forget it." In an afterthought, she adds, "Sorry."

"It's okay," he says gently. It catches her off guard. "You were scared."

She's ready to deny it even though it's true but he's not looking at her so she lets it go. He punches in a speed-dial code. Two rings, that’s all it takes. “Hey, it’s me. Yeah,” he pauses, makes a face. His mouth twists like he’s embarrassed. “Usual place. Could you come down?”

“Usual place?” Jessica raises an eyebrow as he flips the phone shut. “Come here often?”

“Yeah, actually,” he says, cringing. 

“Wow. And I thought my life was shit.”

He lets out a single bark of laughter. “I could give you a run for your money.”

“Clearly," she says. "Please don't take that as an invitation to share.”

60 seconds of semi comfortable silence later and the emergency exit of the building they're staring at slams open to reveal Claire. In sweats with her hair up in a bun, she takes a second to assess the situation in front of her.

“Jesus Christ," she finally snaps and stomps her foot on the ground.

For a second Jessica is convinced she somehow called Claire here telepathically. Only Claire is addressing Satan. "Hey Claire," Satan says, somewhat pathetically.

"You know, I should probably be shocked, but at this point it’s like,” Claire opens her arms out to the sides and gives a big shrug. “Might as well put ‘superhero nurse’ on my resume. Maybe Iron Man will put me on retainer.”

"So, you two know each other?" Jessica asks, even though she makes it a point not to ask questions she already knows the answers to. Claire turns to her with a grimace.

"Unfortunately."

"Hey," Satan interjects. "Come on, I'm dying here."

"You better be," Claire says, but without any venom. Her face goes soft, for a second, and Satan shifts in his seat and Jessica feels like she's intruding. She definitely should have fucked off home when she had the chance.

Claire clears her throat and turns to Jessica. "You okay? You don't look too good, either."

Jessica struggles not to roll her eyes. "I'm fine. I was going to call you for our dying friend over here but he beat me to the punch."

"Yeah. He does that."

"Please stop talking about me like I'm not here."

"He's in no shape to walk," Claire says, steadfastly ignoring the fallen son of God. "Can you give me a hand to get him upstairs?"

* * *

So that's how Jessica ends up on Claire Temple's couch, slugging whiskey that's way too classy for her tastes and watching as Claire stitches up a half-naked Satan. 

"This is weird," Jessica says as Claire strips the rest of Satan's chest armor to reveal a glancing knife wound in his side. "I look at weird shit for a living, so trust me when I say that what I'm looking at right now is _really_  weird. What kind of kinky shit are you guys into?"

Satan chokes on his water, coughs up some blood into his glass for good measure.

Satan's a prude, ha.

Claire's clearly not, because she's smirking. "Oh, the usual. I fish people out of the dumpster and save their lives in my free time."

"Strange hobby," Jessica says.

"Tell me about it."

Claire steps into the kitchen to grab more gauze and Jessica's left alone with Lucifer. He's looking better, marginally. Some colour has returned to his skin and he's stopped wheezing. Probably won't die, at least. Whatever. He's just sitting in silence as if he's content to do it forever and curiosity eventually gets to her. 

"You got a name?" she asks. "Or should I just keep calling you Satan?"

His mouth twists like he's in on a joke. Truthfully, Jessica couldn't care less.

"Satan's fine," he says finally. Fine, then.

"Well, Satan. If you need any help destroying God's angels," Jessica leans over to the table and slides her card across it. "I'm good for backup. In case you ever decide to practice some self-preservation."

Satan does that thing again, the head tilt, like he's concentrating. "Thanks," he says, and he sounds taken aback. Maybe there's a little smile, but maybe it's blood-loss.

"Yeah," she says gruffly, "Don't mention it."

He nods.

"Seriously," Jessica presses. "To anyone. I don't want any part of your weird-ass hero club."

"Noted," he says with a barely disguised grin. "I'll let the weird-ass heroes know to stay clear of you."

Jessica gets to her feet and heads to the kitchen for more whiskey. "Good."

* * *

The next time they meet, she's handcuffed to a table because a man has killed himself in her apartment.

Misty Knight sits across her in the interrogation room, her arms crossed over her chest and a scowl on her face. Jessica has given her nothing but surly deflections for an hour but she knows she's still dangerously close to having her ass thrown in jail for obstruction. It is more than a little distracting and so it's understandable, then, that it takes her a little longer than usual to put two and two together.

A minute after Matt Murdock bursts in, he chuckles at his own stupid joke.

A minute after that, she gets to him. It's too easy. All it takes is her telling him in no uncertain terms to _fuck off,_ and his jaw tightens into a stubborn frown. Jessica recognizes a pissy glare when she sees one, even from a blind man.

It's all strangely familiar.


End file.
